Hello and welcome to ESPNF1's live coverage of the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend. In 30 minutes time the first practice session will get underway with 90 minutes of action on the bumpy and twisty Interlagos circuit.

Judging by the tweets from the paddock there is an end-of-term atmosphere in Sao Paulo with the title wrapped up long ago and the teams' collective focus on 2012. But Brazil has hosted some of F1's most thrilling races in recent years so we should still be in for a treat this weekend, especially if the forecast rain hits the circuit on Sunday.

At the moment it's dry and sunny in Sao Paulo with air temperature at a pleasant 22C and track temperature at 25C.

Jenson Button is ready for the weekend: "Morning guys, last GP race weekend of the year! Let's make it a good one!"

Button is one of three drivers in the running for the runner-up spot in the championship alongside Fernando Alonso, Mark Webber. However, all three have shown little interest in the dubious honour of finishing second to Sebastian Vettel.

An interesting fact from Renault Sport this weekend: "With less oxygen available for the fuel to burn, power output drops. The RS27 engine could be down 8% on power than at a lower altitude."

There are some big talking points this weekend regarding drivers for next year. Renault, Force India, Williams and Toro Rosso have yet to confirm their driver line-ups with intense speculation over who will be filling the seats.

© Sutton Images

Two of the three Brazilians on the grid this year are facing uncertain futures next year, with Rubens Barrichello looking less and less likely to be at Williams and Bruno Senna fighting for a place at Renault with Romain Grosjean, who will drive Vitaly Petrov's R31 this morning. Felipe Massa will be in F1 in 2012 at Ferrari but his future beyond that is uncertain.

On the plus side for Brazilian drivers, Luiz Razia is getting his second FP1 outing of the year at Lotus, atking over from Jarno Trulli. He was also in the T128 in China earlier this season.

Scott asks: "Are the teams going to be testing many new parts in fp1 or is the attention focused on 2012?"

They will most likely be testing 2012 parts on the 2011 cars. All the top teams have been testing new bits and pieces for 2012 in recent races, but the trick has been not to give the game away. Keep an eye out for Ferrari's front wing, which has been its main focus in recent races but has been suffering from intense vibrations.

In total there are five Friday morning drivers getting ready for this session. Razia and Grosjean as mentioned as weel as Jean-Eric Vergne in Sebastien Buemi's Toro Rosso, Nico Hulkenberg in Adrian Sutil's Force India and Jan Charouz in Tonio Liuzzi's HRT. All five cars will be given back to their regular drivers in FP2.

Kovalainen is the first man on track, followed by Charouz and Kobayashi.

All the drivers will complete an installation lap to start with to make sure the car is running as expected and all the systems are working correctly. Then they will get on with pre-planned programmes focussing on anything from new parts to tyre analysis to this weekend's setup.

Here's Ferrari's plans for Friday: "As usual Friday work will be focussed in two main topics: investigating the latest items introduced recently and race weekend preparation. Also, there two extra sets of experimental Pirelli tyres to be tested for 2012."

Alonso dives into the pits after his installation lap. Vettel is now heading out on track.

Lotus has also got some parts to test this morning. Chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne says: "New DRS rear wing here this weekend, doing some aero tests on it this morning"

The BBC reports that McLaren is testing some new wing endplates and Renault is analysing some suspension solutions for 2012.

All the cars have successfully completed an installation lap and returned to the pits. The two Mercedes are the only cars out on track now.

Ferrari tweets: "Installation lap completed by both drivers. All ok, nothing strange to comment."

For what it's worth Schumacher has set a 1:16.778 with Rosberg setting a 1:21.326. Both have now returned to the pits.

Akshay: "Is it true that Sutil is in talks with Renault...would they consider him after Shanghai?"

Sutil was accused of inflicting wounds on Eric Lux - one of Renault's main investors - in a night club following the Chinese Grand Prix. Sutil insisted it was entirely unintentional and in the end no action was taken. However, it does make a move to Renault unlikely for 2012. But Renault also has Grosjean and Senna on their books and, from what team principal Eric Boullier says, it is more likely one of them will take the vacant seat next year. Petrov has a contract with the team for next year although contracts have been broken in the past.

Grosjean and Senna are currently out on track and are lapping in the 1:16s just behind Schumacher.

As I type, Senna goes faster than Schumacher by 0.004s.

Lots of special hemlet designs this weekend. Barrichello is running an Ayrton Senna style lid, Massa's helmet has been chromed and Liuzzi has coloured his in using chalk.

Grosjean has now gone fastest with a 1:16.069. He set his time on the experimental hard tyres, as did Senna.

Senna is sliding his car around the circuit as he tries to get the hard compound up to temperature. Meanwhile, F1 veterans Barrichello and Schumacher are following each other nose-to-tail.

Massa is out on medium tyres and has set the fastest time with a 1:15.473. Schumacher is currently 0.441s slower.

Hamilton is now out on what look like the development hard tyres. He sets a 1:15.078.

A correction, Hamilton is using the medium tyres. He's now improved to a 1:14.503 and is comfortably quickest.

Vettel is out on track and gets in on the action with a 1:14.667.

Neville asks: "Schumacher and Merc seem to be pretty intent on trying to do a lot this session. Do they have much to develop or is the wily old fox just doing some 2012 develoement?"

No doubt they will have an eye on 2012 in this session. Mercedes was one of the teams that tested a 2012-style exhaust at the Young Driver Test in Abu Dhabi, although we won't see that this weekend. Mercedes also tend to focus a lot of attention on race pace during Friday practice so don't be surprised to see a lot of laps but no headline lap time by the end of the session. So far Schumacher has completed 12 laps and Rosberg 9.

A couple of small mistakes from Maldonado and di Resta out on track. This is their last race as a 'rookies' so they may as well make the most of it.

McNeil asks: "I would like to know why wont the formula one teams test the cars on the Nürburgring Nordschleife? Seemingly the track has about 28 corners and is about 21 kms in length I mean shouldn't that be helpful to the teams or the track cannot suit the specs of a formula one car?

"I also happen to see that in lap records of the track there seems to be no f1 car record. Please help me understand I am a true fan of speed and I believe formula one is undisputed when it comes to that department."

The Nurburgring bears little resemblence to any modern F1 circuits and some of the cambers and undulations in the circuit would mean an F1 car would have to be setup in very abnormal manner. The team's like to test at tracks like Barcelona which may be bland but are much closer to what they encounter during the calendar. The Nurburgring is a brilliant testbed for road cars, however, and most performance manufacturers refine their cars there.

As for the F1 lap record, it is a 6:58.6 set by Niki Lauda in 1975, the year before the F1 race was scrapped in 1976 for safety reasons. However, the overall lap record is a 6:11.13 set by Stefan Bellof in a Porsche 956 Le Mans car.

Back to Brazil and just five cars are out on track at the moment. Vettel is fastest with a 1:14.025 with Webber second on a 1:14.040 and Hamilton third on a 1:14.296.

Razia is being given some advice by his engineer, according to Lotus: "Luiz and Gianluca now talking DRS strategy and brake balance. They get through quite a lot in the gaps between runs when it looks quiet"

The Brazilians are putting on quite a show for their home fans with Senna completing 20 laps, Massa 17 and Barrichello on track with 14 laps completed so far.

Pirelli on the 2012 tyres the teams are testing in this session: "The experimental tyres aren't the definitive 2012 versions by the way; next year's tyres will have different profiles."

Alonso is now out on track on the mediums. He hasn't set a flying lap time yet.

Neville with some interesting thoughts on Renault's driver conundrum: "I can't but help thinking that neither Senna, Grosjean or Petrov are Renaults answer. I doubt Kubica will return the driver that he was. Surely Renault need an established top driver and i wonder why Raikkonen has not been snapped up although a Williams seat seems likely. Surely drivers like Paffet should be considered. Sutil has also stagnated and i do not believe he is as good as many made him out to be."

Boullier has said that Renault wants big name drivers but has admitted it probably won't happen next year. Raikkonen is reportedly in talks with Williams about taking some shares in the team, something I suspect Renault would not offer.

Kobayashi has had a spin at Bico de Pato. He lost the rear end in the slow right hander and had to do a 360 degree spin to get his Sauber pointing in the right direction.

Alonso is still out on track but is clearly not focussing on lap times and is nine seconds off the pace. We haven't seen much of him on the screens but he may be running constant speed tests or just a huge amount of fuel.

As I type, Alonso sets the sixth fastest time 1.149s off the fastest time which now belongs to Button.

Button has set a 1:13.950 to go 0.075s faster than Vettel.

Charouz runs wide at turn two and cuts across the grass in his HRT.

Lots of cars now out on track with just Button, Webber, Barrichello, Perez and Glock still in the pits.

Grosjean has stopped at the pit lane exit. It looks as though he might have stalled attempting a practice start. The car is now being pushed away and that's the end of his session with 25 minutes remaining.

Pirelli says: "Nobody is using the soft tyres yet; these will probably be used mostly in FP2 which should be more representative of race conditions."

Hamilton has joined Button at the top of the timesheets so it's now McLaren, McLaren, Red Bull, Red Bull, Ferrari, Ferrari in the top six.

Alguersuari runs wide at turn five and holds a big slide on the run off area. Impressive to watch but not very fast.

Webber has toppled the McLaren dominance with a 1:13.811 to go fastest.

Vettel is the latest to run wide at turn four/ turn five.

A slightly red-cheeked Grosjean is back in the pits. He doesn't look too upset about missing out on the end of the session and gives the cameras a thumbs-up. Renault says a clutch problem caused him to abandon his car.

Ten minutes remaining and Webber is still on top by 0.014s.

Hamilton has just started a flying lap on the medium tyres but is roughly 0.3s down on Webber.

Hamilton completes his lap but is a second off Webber's pace. A replay shows that he locked his right front quite badly at Bico de Pato on that lap. Those tyres will be past their best now as Hamilton has completed 20 laps in total this session.

Alonso is going very slowly through the first few corners and has now cut the engine at the bottom of the Senna S. He reported an engine problem over the radio but is still in the car. He eventually rolls to a halt and gets out of the car.

Ferrari confirms: "Engine failure for Fernando, who had to park the car...."

The teams tend to run old engines in FP1 so its probably not a big concern for Alonso.

All the cars bar Hamilton, Barrichello and obviously Alonso and Grosjean are out on track. Barrichello now joins the party with two minutes remaining.

Vettel is out on the medium tyres but his latest lap is 0.834s off Webber's pace.

Alonso is now stood watching cars from the Senna S. He has one of the best views in the house down there.

The chequered flag is out and nobody is on a lap capable of beating Webber's best.

It's pretty close at the top with Webber just 0.014s off Button and Hamilton 0.150s off the lead Red Bull. Vettel was fourth fastest and 0.214s off his team-mate. Massa and Alonso were fifth and sixth but roughly 0.7s off the pace.

Thanks for joining us for this session, we'll be back with more coverage in second practice in two and a half hours.